ARC Raiders Flickering Flames Candleberries Locations

Arc Raiders Candleberries are a limited-time seasonal resource tied directly to the Flickering Flames event. If you plan to finish the project and secure all event rewards, understanding where Candleberries spawn, when they appear, and how to farm them efficiently matters far more than raw playtime. Most wasted runs come from entering the wrong map condition or searching the wrong zones.

This event is built around two parallel progress tracks: direct Candleberry collection during Cold Snap and passive Candleberry income through event progression. Knowing how to combine both saves hours and lowers extraction risk. If time is tight or you’d rather secure the rewards without repeating Cold Snap runs, ARC Raiders Flickering Flames boost are often used to finish the event cleanly and on schedule.

The guide breaks down exactly where to find Candleberries, and how to complete Flickering Flames without unnecessary grind.

What Candleberries in Flickering Flames Event

Candleberries are a seasonal progression resource added with the Cold Snap update. They are not a side collectible, they are the primary gate for advancing the Flickering Flames project. Every project stage consumes Candleberries, and the required amounts increase sharply toward the final steps.

• Candleberries only exist during the Flickering Flames event and cannot be stockpiled outside it
• Later stages demand significantly more Candleberries than early ones, making early progress important
• The event has a hard end date, unfinished stages do not carry over or convert into other rewards

Read More: Flickering Flames event

Because Candleberries are both time-limited and quantity-gated, delaying collection pushes all remaining progress into a smaller window. Players who spread Candleberry gains across the full event duration finish with fewer risky runs, while late starters often end up forced into repeated Cold Snap farming under pressure.

Cold Snap Map Condition

Candleberries are hard-locked to the Cold Snap map condition. If Cold Snap is not active, Candleberries simply do not spawn anywhere on the map, regardless of location or activity.

How Cold Snap works:

• Cold Snap can roll on any map except Stella Montis, so availability is frequent but not guaranteed
• The condition replaces normal weather with snow and freezing effects, changing visibility and movement
• Only during Cold Snap do Candleberry bushes spawn, and only in their allowed zones
• Even with Cold Snap active, spawn density is limited — a full run may only yield a small number

So entering a map without Cold Snap is always a wasted Candleberry run. Efficient progress starts with checking the map condition first, then deciding whether the run is worth the risk. Cold Snap enables Candleberries, but it does not promise fast farming on its own.

Where to Find Candleberries in ARC Raiders

Candleberries only grow on bright red bushes that spawn during Cold Snap, and each bush always drops exactly one Candleberry. There are no multi-node bushes, no RNG bundles, and no bonus drops. Because of this, efficiency comes from knowing where to look and when to stop searching.

Spawn behavior:

• Candleberry bushes appear only in Nature-type zones, marked by the leaf icon on the map
• These zones overlap with areas that normally spawn fruit for Scrappy upgrades, so familiar farming routes still apply
• Common placements include forest edges, natural clearings, slopes near trees, and overgrown terrain pockets
• Bushes do not spawn inside buildings, industrial zones, or dense urban interiors

What players should realistically expect per run:

• Low spawn density even in optimal Nature zones
• Candleberries are easy to spot once you recognize the color contrast, but rare enough to limit returns
• Full exploration of a Nature area often results in only a handful of berries

Efficient players use Cold Snap runs to grab nearby Candleberries along safe routes, then leave once risk rises. Trying to fully farm Candleberries through exploration alone leads to long exposure, unnecessary fights, and poor return per run.

The Fastest Way to Get Candleberries

The Gathering Candleberries event track is the primary source of Candleberries, because it rewards steady XP gain. Unlike world spawns, this system rewards time spent playing the game safely and consistently, rather than forcing risky routes or waiting for the right map condition.

The Gathering Candleberries event track functions as the primary Candleberry source because it:

• Converts earned XP directly into Merits
• Progresses on any map, regardless of Cold Snap
• Awards up to 180 Candleberries across its milestones
• Removes dependence on low-density bush spawns
• Allows steady progress without routing through exposed Nature zones

This is why the event track is so efficient. Candleberry bushes are intentionally slow: each bush drops only one berry, Nature zones have low density, and Cold Snap doesn’t appear every run.

Farming exclusively through exploration means longer topside exposure and more chances to die before extracting. The event track avoids all of that. Progress keeps moving even during short, low-risk runs, making it far more reliable over time.

Flickering Flames Project & Candleberries

The Flickering Flames project is structured into five sequential stages, and each stage increases pressure on the same resource: Candleberries.

Progression works in a very clear way. Early stages ask for relatively small Candleberry amounts and are easy to clear even with minimal planning. From Stage 3 onward, requirements ramp up sharply, and Candleberries become the only material that meaningfully slows progress. Other items—tools, household loot, and consumables—remain common and are usually completed passively through regular scavenging routes.

What actually changes as you move forward:

• Candleberry requirements scale aggressively in later stages
• Non-Candleberry materials stay easy to replace and are rarely a blocker
• Missing early Candleberry progress compounds into larger delays later

A more detailed breakdown of stage requirements, material sourcing, and efficient completion paths is covered in our dedicated Flickering Flames project guide.

Tips & Tricks for Efficient Progress

The event is designed so that you don’t need to force Candleberry runs every session and doing so often leads to unnecessary risk.

A practical, low-stress approach looks like this:

• Let XP do the heavy lifting. Regular extractions, contracts, and combat all feed XP into Merits, which steadily advance the Gathering Candleberries track. This is your most reliable source of Candleberries over time.
• Check map conditions before deploying. Only commit to Candleberry scouting when a map actually has Cold Snap active. Entering Nature zones without it is pure wasted time.
• Target Nature zones with purpose. When Cold Snap is live, run familiar Nature-marked areas, sweep red bushes efficiently, then extract. Don’t linger hoping for dense spawns, they don’t exist by design.

Final Thoughts

Candleberries are not meant to be hard because of combat or rarity, they’re slow by design. The game pushes you away from brute-force farming and toward controlled, low-risk accumulation. If you try to grind them through Cold Snap runs alone, progress feels bad and inefficient.